Hi everybody,
During the present economic crisis, organizations are looking forward to heavy cost cutting and multitasking comes to the forefront catching everyone's attention. Organizations are finding ways to turn the existing staff into a multi-tasking capable workforce and also to add people who have this capability in future.
Gone are the day where a jack of all trades was considered unfit than a mastered one. Today he rules the organizational world with multi-operational abilities.
Read this interseting article which is helpful for each one us to survive in this age of competition from Economic Times.
Organisations, in a quest to maximise productivity with the help of minimal resources are identifying and retaining employees with "multi-tasking " abilities.
Are you ready to don different hats at different hours of the day? During testing times like these, companies are forced to enhance their performance levels and seek quality from its employees and if you are an excellent multi-tasker, you definitely have an edge over the rest, point out experts
"Multi-tasking is valued to evade a crisis situation. The management favours multi-tasking because it increases the output, with fewer employees. Instead of resorting to layoffs, multi-tasking would help employees retain their jobs in tougher times as they would have the know-how to move to other streams wherein manpower is required. But organisations need to train employees in-house or through external trainings. A certificate at the end of the training would also help," says Vishal Chhiber, HR head, Kelly Services India.
Multi-tasking leads to different job responsibilities thereby increasing an employee's knowledge base and skill. "Considering today's job market, multi-taskers can adapt to another role in the organisation and maintain cost efficiency. However, employees should not be overtaxed as a tired mind and body cannot germinate fresh ideas," says Thiagarajan, MD, Paramount Airways. He adds that, at Paramount, multi-tasking is adopted in security, ground handling and inflight services.
"Security personnel also handle assignments in ticketing check-in counters, boarding gates, besides their core functions. Ground handling personnel also look after passenger convenience. Our cabin crews are trained to handle catering assignments as well. This allows our employees to grow within the organisation and employees who had started their careers as cabin crews have now moved to managerial positions in in-flight services," says Thiagarajan.
Multi-tasking is not suited for everyone. But if optimising productivity and decreasing costs are your main goals, then you will be able to juggle complex tasks tactfully. Malathi Rai, head HR, Lionbridge India suggests ways through which organisations can encourage multi-tasking at the workplace: Identify additional responsibilities that employees can shoulder.
Ensure these are broadly aligned to their area of work; don't give them something that they cannot find value in or identify with. Train them to take on more responsibilities and equip them to bridge gaps in knowledge and/or skill. Motivate them to stretch the boundaries of their capabilities.
Cheers!
Radhika
